If the world told you for 13 years straight that a particular game was an overrated piece of crap, how high would your expectations be when you finally played it? Where would your expectations lie if you tried a game described to you by rabid fans as if it were a sacred artifact programmed by God himself?
While most people couldn't limbo beneath the bar set by Final Fantasy 7's legion of haters, very few can even see the bar EarthBound's league of supporters left floating in outer space.
Totally different games, yet oddly similar.
Despite both being Japanese role-playing games, Final Fantasy 7 and EarthBound couldn't have been more dissimilar if their respective developers had tried. The former is often held reponsible for popularizing its genre outside of Japan. The latter was a big hit only in Japan. Naturally, while Final Fantasy 7's huge success (and status as sequel to the much-loved Final Fantasy 6) earned it a large and vocal crowd of critics, EarthBound's cult-hit qualities earned it…well, a cult of loyal fans.
Today, these two stories are reversed. People playing Final Fantasy 7 for the first time can't figure out what everyone was fighting about for so long, and people playing EarthBound for the first time can't imagine how anyone could ever become so passionate about a cute Dragon Quest rip-off.
It might sound strange, but Final Fantasy 7 is underrated, and EarthBound is overrated. Fans and haters aren't entirely responsible, though. Someone else shares the blame for this odd turn of events.
Final Fantasy 7
Anyone remotely interested in video games back in 1997 can probably understand why Final Fantasy 7's detractors were so adamant about their opinion: Its fans were just as adamant about their own! Most smitten by the game declared their love with shallow justifications. They proclaimed Sephiroth to be the greatest villain of all time because he looked so cool walking through flames, and many swear to have wept when one of the heroes died, although most probably never used her in battle.
None of that convinced the critics. Surely 7 was the first Final Fantasy these fanboys ever played. Didn't it bother them that each party member was basically a placeholder for the game's overpowered Materia? Don't they realize the plot was full of gaping holes? Who could stand to watch a three-minute Summon attack more than once?
He's just too cool for reason and fire safety.
Final Fantasy 7's opponents had valid points, and they barked them every chance they got. Eventually, this habit became a reflex, and they launched into angry rants at the slightest mention of the game — even when it wasn't accompanied by blind praise.
Years have passed, and the the fans don't argue like they used to. Final Fantasy 7 is an extremely successful and influential game that supposedly sucks. Something about that doesn't make sense, and gamers seem to be catching on.
When the game reappeared on PlayStation Network last year, thousands of people played it for the first time in ages. Others played it for the first time ever. Many of them found it to be to be ugly and dated but quirky and fun; definitely not something worthy of 13 years of scorn. All that hate has made Final Fantasy 7 a hugely underrated game.
EarthBound
Meanwhile, the devoted fanbase of another RPG is still waiting for its favorite game to get a digital rerelease.
EarthBound, known as Mother 2 in Japan, bombed in America when it launched in 1995, but its fan community has been one of the most loyal and active despite the game's commercial and critical failure. It has led petitions to get all three Mother games released outside of Japan in some form or another. These attempts include typical signature collections, phone-ins to Nintendo, awareness campaigns, professionally bound compilations of fan artwork, and finally a complete fan translation of Mother 3. Some of these efforts were awe-inspiring, others were cringe-inducing, but each earned the series far more attention than it ever received at the time of its release.
The problem with all this publicity, however, is that EarthBound isn't a very impressive game. Most players passed when it was new for more advanced offerings like Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger based on visuals alone. Even if someone did look past its surface, the majority of EarthBound's mechanics resemble those of early Dragon Quests. Fans argue the appeal is in the bizarre humor, the modern setting, the breaking of the fourth wall, but those qualities alone don't make something classic.
They're all talking about Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6.
The simple fact of the matter is that EarthBound never impressed very many people on its own merits. Combined with the years of advocacy from adoring fans, it's unlikely most gamers will ever be able to enjoy it. Like with so many cult movies and bands, the hype and praise from EarthBound's fans doomed it to become overrated.
The Developers
Of course, EarthBound and Final Fantasy 7's developers played big roles in screwing over themselves, too.
Diehard Final Fantasy 7 supporters have been asking for a remake for years, and Square Enix constantly eggs them on with juicy quotes about how it would take too much work to reproduce the game in beautiful HD. Instead, they have the ongoing Compilation of Final Fantasy 7, a collection of ridiculous movies and games based on the original.
If there's something about Final Fantasy 7 still worthy of hate, it's got to be the way its creators continously pervert the game's characters and settings to fit their overly stylizied ideal of what they wish it was. They've seemingly forgotten Final Fantasy 7 is a game where the main character dresses as a woman to win a date with a pimp, a talking lion dances awkwardly in a sailor suit, friends respond to the death of a loved one by snowboarding, and scantily-clad women have a slap fight on the barrel of massive cannon. Any remake would divide the fanbase and create a new generation of haters.
You guys used to be so cool. What happened?
Nintendo didn't do much to help EarthBound, either. It advertised the game's release with scratch-'n-sniff magazine ads and the slogan "This game stinks!" How were people supposed to buy the game, much less play it, when its publisher flat-out told you the best thing it had going for it was fart jokes?
Years later, Nintendo of America would rather forget the game ever ever existed. It removed the EarthBound demo from Super Smash Bros. Brawl and has never officially responded to any of the fanbase's numerous protests and campaigns. Supposedly, the company was close to releasing the game on the Virtual Console before pulling the plug due to concerns over music sampling and copyright issues.
Had Nintendo's promotion of EarthBound been more mature than a third grader, the series may not have seen so much negelct over the years. And maybe if Square would have realized Final Fantasy 7 couldn't possibly live up to its original presentation, we would have received the modest remake the game deserves.
Maybe next time, we'll think before we declare our undying love or hate for a game…but only if its creators don't ruin it first.